


Foundations

by sterlinglee



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Datekou, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1814815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterlinglee/pseuds/sterlinglee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Datekou loses at the Inter-High, and nothing can stay the same.  Moniwa does his best to handle things with grace.  Futakuchi, on the other hand, is smart enough to recognize the inevitable but he'll go down fighting before he'll ever call it fair.  </p><p>(The building of the Iron Wall continues.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foundations

“I—I told you already, I won’t be around for the Spring High,” Moniwa says, his voice strained and hoarse from calling out on the court. Futakuchi feels heat rising in his head, pressure building, maybe the last flush of heat in left him before he’s running on fumes.

“What, because we’re a pain in the ass?” he bursts out. But he knows that what he really means is, _Did I mess it up for you somehow, was there just one time where I should have kept my mouth shut and didn’t_

_don’t you love it any more I’m sorry_

“Wha—that’s just how things are, I told you already! Third-years have the Inter-High, and that’s it.” Moniwa scrubs a hand through his sweaty, tufted hair. In the corner of his eye, Futakuchi can see Aone biting down hard on his lower lip. He’ll have to do some damage control there but for the moment he just feels rejected, a sour taste in his mouth because they were so _close_ to winning and he wants to grab them all by the collars and shout, _If it means anything to you, anything at all, then why won’t you_ stay?

“Look,” Moniwa continues. “You guys are strong. For us third-years, there was a time when we didn’t think of ourselves as the ‘Iron Wall’—that’s different now. Thanks to you, we were able to do that name proud.”

Futakuchi is well versed in the game of getting and keeping. Wherever he goes he’s the problem child, the one who doesn’t share well with others, and he’s always settled easily into the freedom it gave him. He doesn’t understand. Volleyball, the Iron Wall—if you love something, why not hold tight to it, why not fight tooth and nail to keep the thing that makes you feel alive?

Moniwa is still talking. He is charging them with a duty. He sounds like a man passing on a dying wish as he says, “Take down Seijou, Shiratorizawa, and Karasuno, and head to the nationals!”

Futakuchi agrees automatically, half furious that he can’t bring himself to jab a mean comment between the ribs of this awful melodrama. On any other day he could pop it like a balloon, bleed the pain out and let them yell at his immaturity because that, at least, he knows how to deal with. Today the silence of the good kouhai is his only defense mechanism against the tremor in Moniwa’s voice. 

He lets Aone clear a path through the sweaty huddle of their teammates as they head for the locker room. Moniwa melts into the group, moving easily, squeezing shoulders and gripping forearms and saying things like, “Good game. Good game, guys. You were really great out there.” He gives them a slight weary smile as he passes in search of Coach, and Aone starts to blink back tears. Futakuchi bumps against him consolingly.

“Ah, damn,” he mumbles later, when they’re halfway across the parking lot to the bus. “Wait a sec, I forgot my other towel.” When he turns to head back, Aone is right there in step with him. That stopped being weird a long time ago.

He’s got a hand outstretched in front of the locker room door before instinct breaks through the fuzz of tiredness and disappointment, and he stops to _listen_. Inside, at least one person is crying.

Aone glances at him, the message abundantly clear: time to back off. But Futakuchi has never known what’s good for him, at least not without a little firsthand education in the pain involved. He doesn’t turn away just yet. He can hear voices.

“ _Dammit_ ,” Moniwa snarls, and in his mouth it’s not even vicious, just brittle and retreating. He doesn’t seem to be able to manage more of an outburst, but Kamasaki takes it up for him the way he’s always doing.

“We could have had it,” the wing spiker growls, and Futakuchi can tell he’s been doing a good bit of the crying. “I can’t believe this. I wanted—” A locker bangs. “I wanted to keep _going_.” 

Futakuchi steps back from the door. There’s a clot of helpless rage swelling in his chest; something unspeakable, forged hot. He doesn’t have to turn and look to know that Aone too is alight with mortified determination beside him. 

On the bus, the underclassmen sit in uncomfortable half-silence, and wait for the third-years to join them.

Coach Oiwake takes Futakuchi aside as they’re filing off the bus in the dark of evening. Something about the look on his face, the way their faculty advisor stands at his elbow with a quiet, absorbed expression, means that Aone knows to keep going without him. “I’d like to see you in my office before the next practice,” Coach says. For once, Futakuchi has nothing to say. Part of him understands what this is already. He just doesn’t want to think about it.

Aone gives him a questioning look when he catches up to the others, and he shrugs. “Tell you later.”

There are a couple of old plastic chairs in the hall outside Coach’s office, castoffs from miscellaneous classrooms with uneven legs and scuffed enamel coatings. Futakuchi takes one, but he hasn’t been seated a minute when Moniwa exits the office.

“The basketball coach just dropped by to work out the gym schedule,” Moniwa says apologetically as he takes a seat—as if he could do something about that if he were just a bit more forward. “They’ll be done in there in a couple minutes, I think.”

Futakuchi nods, rocks a little in his skewed chair and listens to a loose screw on the bottom rattle. The words are on his tongue, not particularly humble or circumspect words but the truth, he knows. “He’s going to give me the captain’s jersey, isn’t he,” he says.

Moniwa stares. Then a rueful smile spreads across his face and he drops his head forward with a laugh. “You would pick up on it just like that,” he says. “Well, it was supposed to be that we tell you now, and then make the announcement to the team at practice. I mean, barring anything unexpected.”

“Like me turning it down?” Futakuchi says dryly. 

Moniwa gives him an unreadable look. “Yeah, like you turning it down. But you aren’t going to, hmm?” He isn’t teasing, isn’t really probing even because those things have never been a part of the Moniwa repertoire. Moniwa doesn’t poke in at the edges of people’s minds, either to get a rise or get leverage; he’s _earnest_. Contrary to popular belief, Futakuchi would in fact know earnestness if it hit him in the face—he prefers to keep it at a distance, that’s all, where it has less chance of doing him any injury.

“I feel like I have to make a speech or something now,” Moniwa goes on. “I’m not ready for that yet—you could have waited a little to bust the whole thing open, couldn’t you?” He laughs again, shoulders hunched and high, clutching at the sides of his flimsy plastic seat.

“Don’t push yourself,” Futakuchi snipes, and maybe that’s what Moniwa needs to hear because his expression clears just a little. 

“It’s not like I think you need a shovel talk or anything,” he says, forcing himself to sit naturally. “Even if I still feel a little attached to my number—I guess I’ll just have to get over that, huh?” He’s trying. He’s really trying. Futakuchi manages not to cringe, manages not to ask, _But what the hell do I_ do _now?_

Moniwa must have seen it in his face, though. His smile goes crooked at the edges, like he’s suddenly putting a lot of effort into maintaining it. “Look, this is just—”

“Don’t tell me ‘this is all as it should be,’” Futakuchi grinds out, done with tiptoeing around it. “Don’t say that. Not if you still love it.”

“If I still…” Moniwa gives him a sharp look. Something horribly like compassion blooms across his face, and Futakuchi can see that he understands. With quiet emphasis, Moniwa says, “It’s not leaving you guys, you know. That’s not what I’m doing. Me, Kamasaki, Sasaya. We’re all of us going towards something else.”

“And that’s different,” Futakuchi says mulishly. He knows he’s being a brat. He doesn’t really care.

Moniwa gives him a tight-lipped smile. “Okay so yeah, maybe it is leaving you guys. But I took it as far as I could, okay? This is just—this is where my ride ends.”

“You can’t be saying that’s fair!”

“Of course it’s not _fair!_ ” Moniwa snaps. Futakuchi blinks, and immediately Moniwa’s voice drops as he says, “I have an internship starting next month, you know. I have a bunch of meetings with my career counselor, I have to visit universities. I have—things.” He takes a breath, and fixes Futakuchi with his clear stalwart captain’s look. 

Moniwa Kaname is a fairly good setter for a high school team that has, on occasion, earned prefectural rankings. He talks too quietly and worries too much; is small, steely, resigned. He cannot set a team on fire with his very presence. Futakuchi’s Iron Wall is built on his back.

“Hey, just…don’t disrespect your teammates by going into this all fixed on the past, okay?” Moniwa tells him. “I said it already, you guys are strong. You have everything you need.”

The office door opens and the basketball coach emerges, tossing some parting shot over his shoulder. Coach sticks his head out. “Ah, Futakuchi-kun, you’re here. Come on in, please.”

Futakuchi glances at him uncomprehendingly. Moniwa smiles and lays a hand momentarily on his back, a little suggestion of a shove to get him up out of his seat. At the last moment, like someone digging desperately for the tool he needs, Futakuchi comes up with a self-assured, challenging grin, all hard edges because that’s always been easier than losing his composure entirely. “You never got the hang of this lecturing thing,” he says, as snippily immature as he can manage. “Guess I’ll have to work on discipline.”

“You little…” Moniwa gives a choked laugh, and pulls nervously at the wristband of his watch. “Look, I have to go. But I’ll see you around, okay?” His face is full of things he doesn’t seem to know the words for. 

“All right.” Futakuchi straightens his shoulders, understanding that Moniwa, at least, says nothing that he does not mean. He pauses on the threshold, and reaches up to touch the lintel before heading through the door.

**Author's Note:**

> why did i wait this long to be sad about moniwa kaname, seriously. it's a long dark place with many side tunnels and interesting bottomless pits. i have been here for days now


End file.
